


Fading Seasons

by Magicalcrab



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Drama, F/F, Miqo'te (Final Fantasy XIV), Miqo'te Headcanon (Final Fantasy XIV)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:46:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23374885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magicalcrab/pseuds/Magicalcrab
Summary: The Nunh lies on his deathbed, and a rather unique Seeker tribe steeped in woodland tradition is set to enter a transition period. A young daughter, F'abilyn Lhea, has to undergo a change of her own. While the men prepare for the trials to earn the mantle of leadership, F'abilyn must overcome her own obstacles if she ever hopes to be anything but an outsider in her own tribe. This is an origin story about friendship, the struggles of figuring yourself out as a young miqo'te, and making mistakes.Written for my own benefit as an exercise to explain why my character is the way she is. I thank anyone who takes the time to read F'abilyn's story.
Kudos: 7





	Fading Seasons

“The Nunh is near death.”

The whisper had travelled around the tribe for days. Lhea Nunh had been dying for months, but this new phrasing had finally gained enough conviction to be repeated as a certainty within the village. As F’abilyn cleaned herself in the river, she overheard some of the other girls, a pair of hunters, talking about how eulogies were being prepared and memorised, how the builders were collecting lumber for a pyre, and how the Völva prayed for the dying man’s peace. A harsh, suffocating silence had fallen over the village, only broken by hushed murmurs and the occasional sounds of labour.

Once she had washed herself and put on her long, black gown as she had been instructed, F’abilyn found her mother waiting for her in the village square, surrounded by a gathering of F’abilyn’s aunts and cousins. They all wore similar gowns, some adorned with streaks of dark blue, in honour of the Nunh’s eyes.

“You put it on,” her mother said as she came close enough to hear, surprise obvious in her voice. “Do you like the velvet?”

“It’s soft.” F’abilyn nodded.

“Come.” Her mother put an arm around her shoulders and ushered her toward the steps to the Nunh’s hall. “It’s time.”

They exchanged a solemn greeting with the young healer standing by the door as they passed. She could not have been much older than F’abilyn, perhaps a little past 20 summers. Her arms were folded, hands tucked into her sleeves and her face struggling to come to terms with knowing that there was nothing more she could do. The hall was dark, the main source of light being wood soaked in aromatic oils blazing on the hearth in the bedchamber. Around the bed, the Nunh’s council had taken up positions as demanded by the ceremony accompanying the passing of a Nunh. Her mother, being a senior huntress, found a spot for them by the foot of the bed. By the left side, half-draped in shadow, F’abilyn could scarcely make out the hunched shape of her grandmother, but she heard the insistent rattling of beads and droning prayers clearly. On the right side, one of the village’s few males, F’thigo, spoke up. “They have arrived, father,” he said in a burly voice appropriate for a Tia of his size. “F’eyuh and her daughter are here to see you.”

F’thigo bent down to help prop Lhea Nunh up on his pillows. The growth just under his ribcage had been slowly bringing him closer to his passing over the last six moons. Here, at the end, as F’abilyn laid eyes on the man who had sired her, he seemed a physical caricature of himself. Flesh long melted away, skin hanging loosely from the bone, his face framed by dull and brittle hair. Only his deep, azure eyes remained unchanged. As they settled on F’abilyn and her mother, the corners of his mouth twitched slightly.

“F’eyuh,” he croaked. “Still as beautiful as you are fierce, I see.”

“As are you, F’lhea,” her mother responded, accompanying her joke with a gentle bow.

The dying man jerked out a dry laugh. “You should be glad our daughter did not inherit any of my looks.”

“She inherited your stubbornness instead,” her mother pointed out.

Lhea’s fingers moved, clutching the blanket. “Did she now?” he asked and leaned forward. “And does she put this stubbornness of mine to good use?”

F’abilyn’s mother pursed her lips together and performed yet another small bow. She nudged F’abilyn in the side with an elbow, compelling her to do the same.

“We have not yet found a suitable task for her,” her mother explained with just a hint of exasperation in her voice. “Her purpose is still unclear.”

Observed by everyone in the room, F’abilyn’s stomach twisted itself into a knot. This was it. Their household’s shame brought bare in front of the Nunh and his entire council. Throughout her time in the tribe, they had discovered she lacked - amongst other things - the patience for weaving, that she was too delicate for carpenting, and that she even lacked the nose for the hunt. Try as she might, she had always remained a liability. A mouth to feed, with nothing to contribute in turn. To make matters worse, she could feel F’thigo’s pointed grin burning into her skin from the other side of the bed.

“You must have tried everything by now, and still nothing?” the broad-shouldered Tia said with feigned incredulity. F’thigo had to have been the largest, nastiest person F’abilyn knew, ever since the day he had dropped a stone on her tail on purpose and laughed when she started crying. The pair of them had been cubs at the time. Now, his eyes bore in the direction of F’abilyn’s hips, studying them for a moment.

“What about _childbearing_?” he proposed, arms folded. “Surely even she can manage that.”

The ambient noise of her grandmother’s rattling beads came to a halt. F’abilyn tensed, heat flooding to her face as silence now buzzed around them. He knew how she felt about the prospect of motherhood, and he had picked the perfect opportunity to shame her for it.

Eventually, Lhea broke the silence. “F’thigo,” he said in a voice stronger than anyone had heard from him in weeks. “You wish to dishonour our forefathers?”

F’abilyn looked up and saw F’thigo’s grin had vanished, replaced by a glare through slitted eyes.

“I would not force her.” He shrugged, maintaining his angry stare.

“We cannot.” The nunh’s eyes blazed. “We must not.”

To her surprise, instead of receiving the condemnation she’d expected, the nunh’s mouth quirked into a partial smile when she met his gaze.

“You’ve inherited more than you know, lass.” He paused, nodding. “Your purpose will make itself known in time.”

Then he leaned back and rested against the cushions that held him upright, putting an end to the conversation. As he laid quietly for another moment, F’abilyn released a breath she could not remember holding. It felt as though a whole minute passed where neither one of them said anything. From the corner of her eye she saw her mother straightening her back beside her. As she rose from her bow, her mother spoke, barely louder than a whisper. “ _Beannachd leibh,_ ” she said, invoking the Old Tongue. F’abilyn did not understand much of it, outside of what little her grandmother had taught her. It was the language of magic, rarely spoken by anyone besides spirits, wind ghosts and faeries.

The Nunh responded by weakly lifting his hand off of the embroidered coverlet, holding up two fingers.

“ _Nì thu gu math fhathast,_ ” he whispered back, and his hand fell limply against the bed.

Having said her goodbyes, her mother wrapped an arm around F’abilyn’s shoulders and led her outside again. When they exited the hall, she saw the young healer guiding another pair of women inside. Quietly, she wondered whether the spirits would keep Lhea alive long enough to meet with all of her cousins who had queued up in the village square before he passed.

* * *

F’abilyn’s mother threw open the small door of hewn planks and stepped inside their home. They had walked all the way back in silence, ears tucked low against their heads. The timber walls were adorned with various spears and axes used for the hunt, especially made for her mother. Each one was worn, with blades riddled with slight imperfections or by having traces of dirt along the handles. They all had stories to tell, much more thrilling and exciting than any tale F’abilyn could spin about her own life. Her mother had tracked and felled many beasts, bringing food to the hearth. Only recently, she had slain the giant boar that rent the other hunters with its tusks, and dragged both its carcass and her injured companions home. Long before that, her mother had successfully trumped the hyur invaders who sought to hack down their willows and enslave every living thing in the woods. Since then, their tribe had been left undisturbed by outsiders for years.

The trophies lining the walls were constant reminders that the blood of a hero had been passed down to F’abilyn, and how she was wasting it.

“Stop that,” her mother said as she joined F’abilyn by the wall. She held out her hand and offered her daughter a small sliver of dried meat. Just something to hold her over until tonight’s feast.

“Stop what?” F’abilyn responded as she accepted the snack between two fingers, nodding a quick thanks to her elder.

“You’re battling your mind again.” Her mother smiled, and her hand motioned to one of her rugged spears hanging from the wall. “Measuring yourself against a lifetime of experience will do you no good.”

F’abilyn bit down on her dried meat, chomping away at it. “I will keep training with the blade,” she said, puffing out her chest. “Some day, soon, I will be able to carry it and become a warrior like you.”

At that, her mother chuckled, and F’abilyn’s face turned hot. “You will be what the ancestors mean for you to be. There is no use arguing with them.” The older woman shrugged. “As much as you wish it, I do not believe our paths are the same.”

F’abilyn could not hide her disappointment. As with every other time they had had this conversation, her mother still did not understand. A memory invaded the front of her mind, of that time she faced F’thigo on the sparring grounds. He had used his massive arms to push her so hard she fell face first into the mud. He laughed at her, then. Every one did. Even though the blood of warriors ran in her veins, and a warrior’s place had been _her_ inheritance, the ancestors had seen fit to curse her with bones like a bird’s. Maybe they enjoyed mocking her just as much as F’thigo did. Perhaps more.

“I will keep training,” F’abilyn repeated. Deep down, she knew she was being childish, but she did not care. “I will spar with F’aalah tonight, and then—”

“No,” her mother interrupted. There was a stern, hard set to her jaw that alerted F’abilyn to an incoming lecture. “Tonight, you will mourn your Nunh,” she said, and turned away. With a few determined steps, she crossed their living quarters and began to rummage through a small wooden box on her bedside table. She reached into it and drew forth a long, beaded string. It was a beautiful necklace, made up of crystalline stones plucked from the sands of the Founding loch, shimmering crimson with the blood of the forebears whose spirits resided in its waters. “Tomorrow, you will wear this. And once the Sending is over, you will present yourself to your grandmother.”

“What?” F’abilyn nearly spat out some of the half-chewed meat from her mouth. “Why?”

Her mother slid the necklace, one bead at a time, into F’abilyn’s palm. “Wear it, and ask her to let you join the Völva,” she said when she closed F’abilyn’s hand around the stones. “Please. She may have a place for you.”

F’abilyn had heard her, of course, though she could not believe it. Confusion, disappointment and anger all stirred in her chest, and she clutched the necklace tight between her fingers. “I can’t join the Völva! I’m not a seeress,” she protested, and her eyes flicked to stare longingly at the weapons on the wall again. The Völva were enlightened prophets; interpreters of messages from ancestral and woodland spirits. They spoke to the waters, trees and the skies and derived meaning from them to assist and guide the tribe. Unlike her grandmother, however, F’abilyn did not speak the Old Tongue, and had never once heard the fey in her whole life. The spirits were never interested in her. She was supposed to be a _warrior_ with a _warrior’s_ blood! She was nothing like her grandmother. “I don’t carry that kind of wisdom in me,” was all she said. A lump in her throat prevented her from saying more.

Then she felt her mother’s fingers around her chin, turning her face away from the spears and forcing her to meet her eyes. “Of course not. If you held all the answers, then why would we ever need the ancestors?” she said, a smile on her face. If she was making a joke, F’abilyn did not find it very funny. “Your body might be too small to wield a weapon like my spears, that is true.” She pressed a digit against F’abilyn’s forehead. “But your spirit is so vast, and your dreams are so wild that I’m afeart they’ll make the loch run over when your time comes. There is no stronger weapon than that.”

F’abilyn shook her head and leaned away, annoyed with her mother’s touch. Slowly, she opened her hand to stare at the necklace, and the stones looked back at her with the deep red of a dripping sunset. It was so difficult. Becoming a warrior was a dream she’d carried with her since childhood. Joining the Völva would mean having to let go of it, forever. “You don’t think I’ll ever be strong enough?” she asked, her voice dampened by bitterness.

Her mother’s smile fell, her lips angling down over her sharp teeth. She frowned, but did not respond. Her hesitation was enough of an answer, nonetheless. One that ignited a fire deep within F’abilyn’s core, and she clutched the necklace so hard it hurt. She felt her hand shaking, her heartbeat ringing through her ears as her knuckles turned white. “I can’t believe you think so little of me!” she shouted, and spun around at such speed her tail bumped against the table. It’d bruise, but she didn’t care about that. Nor did she care about the planks groaning underneath her feet as she stomped toward the door.

“F’abilyn, please. I think the world of you,” her mother spoke with a quiver in her tone. “If I didn’t, I would’ve handed you that spear and prayed to the ancestors, every day, that you’ll never have to use it.”

F’abilyn refused to believe her. She left the house with her eyes on the ground, keeping her head down so as to not let every other member of the tribe see the rage and shame burning in her cheeks. She didn’t want their pity. They’d be wrong to pity her.

One day, she thought, she’d surpass them all.

**Author's Note:**

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